Podcasting for Profit: Building Deals, Relationships, and Influence

Podcasting for Profit: Building Deals, Relationships, and Influence

Tim Fitzpatrick
You know that relationships drive growth in B2B, and podcasting can be one of the most powerful ways to build them while amplifying your expertise. But most business owners never tap into the full potential, because they focus on downloads and sponsors or perfect production, instead of using it as a real networking and business development tool. In this episode, I'm talking with Steve Ramona, who has turned his podcast into a lead generation engine that has opened doors to high value relationships, major deals, and unexpected opportunities. And he's going to share exactly how he does it with us today. Hi, I am Tim Fitzpatrick with Rialto Marketing, where we believe marketing shouldn't be difficult, and it definitely shouldn't be guesswork. Thank you so much for taking the time to tune in. I am super excited to have Steve Ramona with me today from Doing Business with a Servant's Heart.

Steve Ramona
Tim, thank you for having me on. I'm super excited because we're going to give them some tips on marketing they've probably not heard of.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yes. We're going to just shed the light on things, right? Absolutely. I'm glad that we're able to switch sides of the mic. You had me on your podcast. Thank you for doing so. Here we are again. We've just shifted sides. So excited to dig into this with you. Before we jump into it, I want to ask you a few rapid fire questions if you're ready to jump in with both feet.

Steve Ramona
Fire away, excuse the pun.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Okay, man. When you're not working, how do you like to spend your time?

Steve Ramona
I love sports. I love working out. Movies. Me and my wife are big movie buffs. But we just saw this is October 20th, the Springsteen movie. Very interesting, very good.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Oh, yeah. Interesting.

Steve Ramona
Really good movie. So we do that. She loves to cook. I love to cook with her. I don't cook as much. But that's another thing we have, Pat. We love restaurants, too. We're foodies a little bit.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, there you go. What's your hidden talent?

Steve Ramona
It used to be connecting people, but I think people see me as the super connector. I think my hidden talent is really to connect with people and not just connecting, but when I jump on a call, I know how to connect with somebody within five minutes.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, that's a nice talent to have. What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given?

Steve Ramona
Get better 1% every day. Keep moving the bowler forward up the hill, and when you get to the top, then it just goes down on its own. Just get better, whatever that looks like. Reading, watching a video, listening to a podcast, reaching out to your mentor, but always doing something that's just going to get you better, personally and professionally.

Tim Fitzpatrick
That reminds me of... Have you ever read The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson?

Steve Ramona
A long time ago, but I remember it was really good.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, it's an It's a book. It's been around for a while, but that philosophy reminds me of that very much. It's just the good things, the little good things are easy to do every day, and the little bad things are easy to do every day. And whatever choice we make, it compounds over time. And so, yeah, just, man, one % better every day makes a huge difference.

Steve Ramona
And to add to that real quick is people want to grow fast. Yeah, We all need money. We all want to... We've got the greatest service or product. It's going to make millions. We got to be careful with that because it's going to lose our motivation. Because I talked to a guy that was doing a million dollars a year, and I said, What's your goal for next year? 100 million. I'm never saying anybody can't do it, but the probabilities of doing that are probably out there. You're stretching it. I said, Hey, why don't you get another million extra, do two million. If you had five, even better. He took it, and he's on path to do that, and he really appreciate it because, yeah, we all love to go from million to 100 million, but his life is still getting better by getting better every day.

Tim Fitzpatrick
It reminds me, too, and I can't remember where I heard this, but it always stuck with me, is impatience with action, patience with results. Take the action, take the action, but you got to have patience with the results because as much as we might love to think it, and as much as people put it out there, Rome wasn't built in a day.

Steve Ramona
Here's another good one. You said that. Sorry, you're up. No, it's all good. The Marines and Navy Seals have this phrase, slow is smooth, smooth is fast.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yes.

Steve Ramona
Really similar to what you're saying. We're so aligned that way. That's powerful. Ever since I've heard that, that's kept me... It's like, God, I missed that million-dollar contract. I didn't get it. That's all right. I'll do a $10,000 contract in a couple of weeks and move towards It keeps moving you forward. You're going to have stepbacks. Entrepreneurship and life does that. But step back once, move forward two, step forward. You're eventually at the end of the week or the end of the month, you're moving ahead. You're in a positive.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, I love it. What's one thing about you that surprises people?

Steve Ramona
That I give so much. I just love giving. I'll jump on calls. I'll I did it Saturday on a podcast, and Friday, I met a lady, get an introduction, and just give them a whole bunch of free stuff. My time, my resources, my introductions, and I get all these great... Both of them sent me beautiful email. This is the best call I've been on. I can't believe how much you helped me. It lights me up. I think we need to move towards that more because the money will come, the success will come.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah. Speaking of success, what success mean to you?

Steve Ramona
I've left a legacy of serving that when they put me in the ground, that I've tried to help everybody I meet. That's my goal, a lot of increase every day. Before I got on this podcast, I sat, meditated, and prayed a little bit and said, Give Tim the best guest opportunity that you can't.

Tim Fitzpatrick
That's cool.

Steve Ramona
Always uplifting. Yeah. Again, we can't... Sports has scoreboards. I'm a big sports guy. Yeah, that's important, but not in this personal development, this business realm. It's because a scoreboard will go wacky. It'll go up, down, left, right, up, down. It's just a process. It's a journey. Keep moving the journey forward.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Where's your happy place?

Steve Ramona
Being alone with my dogs, now reading. This year, I've read more than I have in 20 years. It makes me happy because I'm learning, I'm growing, I'm alone, I'm silent. I talk to a lot of people a day. It's work. You do it, too. It's a mental work, but it tires you. I've really learned to rest and relax and read, whether it's 10, 15 minutes, maybe it's a half hour. It just starts you back up.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, I love it. What about the qualities in people that you spend time with? What qualities do you value?

Steve Ramona
That service mentality. Either they have it or want to learn about it, they're willing to be educated or educate me. Law of reciprocity, kindness, empathy. I think love is missing in business, and we need more of it. I think love is missing in marketing. It's the attack, tack, tack, our TV ads, our social media ads. It works. I'm not judging it at all, but I'd rather see somebody marketing something, and the person comes to them and says, You're not a fit for my company. Let me give you this other company. That's loving somebody. Giving up money or giving up a client to help them be better somewhere else. Same with your employees. Hey, they're not a fit. People get this eventually, but you're really serving an employee that's not doing the job, not working, that's not happy. Going there, I'm going to go, Hey, Tim Smith. Hey, it's just not a fit here in the sales, but I've got a great position in admin. I've noticed you did this, this, and this. Let's put you over there and make you more successful. One, it makes the move much easier. Two, what are you doing You're building the culture. You're building the company. You're building the revenue. Same thing with firing. If you have to let somebody go and you can call competitors or somewhere and get them another place to interview, you left a nice bridge.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, no doubt about it. Steve, tell us more about your podcast. You've got other businesses. Tell us a little bit more about that, and then we can jump into what you're doing with your podcast. I'm excited to do that.

Steve Ramona
Yeah, the podcast took off October of 2022. I started recording a couple of months later, started learning about it, went through some coaching, fabulous coaching with Josh Tapp, who was very successful in podcasting. And my whole goal was, Tim, we just talked about the law of increase. I'm like, Podcasting would be cool if I learn this and take my clients and I highlight them. I sent them out to my world. I started doing it to them and people were, Hey, can I be on your podcast? And they're sending me Rock stars, Lee Steinberg, Jerry Maguire movie, Bob Berg, who wrote The Go-Givers' Book. I just had Joe Vitale, who's the secret movie. He just came out with Zero Limits, and he's a big hono-pono and meditation. I don't want to say meditation, but spiritual guy, maybe millions of followers. He had no problem being on my show, and I'm realizing I can make a bigger impact by getting my message out with a whole bunch of people, but even influential people, that I can make a bigger impact.

Starting a Podcast

Tim Fitzpatrick
That's awesome. I love it. So you said you started your podcast in 2022. What inspired you to start the podcast and how has it evolved into what it is today?

Steve Ramona
Wow, that's a fantastic... Oh, my God, Tim. That's a great question.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Loaded question.

Steve Ramona
It is. And I don't get asked a lot, pieces of this. The inspiration we're getting was the clients and very interested in learning something new. Of course, money. When I first started, I thought, Hey, sponsors, maybe make a little bit of money on the side, be a nice passive income. Then, like I said, I started interviewing people, and they started bringing me rock stars, and people started listening, and people started reaching out, Hey, that was a great podcast. Hey, Steve, you've become a great podcast host. I love listening to you. Hey, Steve, I heard this guest and you changed my life. I'm like, Holy mackereel. I'm making an impact with people. I'm really serving like I've always wanted to. Then I started reaching out to higher-profile people to really get the message out. But then I started building this network of very successful millionaires and billionaires that I could reach out to as I build a relationship and ask for things. Need funding for this project, 100 million. Yeah, let me get you a couple of people. Hey, I'm looking for this. I built this massive network. The great thing about that, yeah, it does help me, but like you, Tim, you can come to me and go, Hey, I'm looking for this, and I go through my network, Well, here, let me help you with that. Just had an email before this show happened. Hey, do you know somebody in this area? And I did an introduction for them. They're like, Oh, my God, that's great. What a great impact you could do impacting people.

Turning a Podcast into a Business Growth and Networking Engine

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, that's so interesting. So we're going to break this down. So the next question I want to ask you is about your process, right? And the process for turning your podcast into a business growth and networking engine. It sounds like initially you weren't thinking about it that way, but as you got into it, you realized that it could be a tool for that. Am I right on that?

Steve Ramona
You nailed it. It's exactly what happened.

Tim Fitzpatrick
So once you realized that, do you have this set process of how you do that? Are there certain things that you do regularly? Break that down a little bit.

Steve Ramona
Yeah, I do have a system. And thank you for asking because I share it. By the way, I have a free podcast workshop I do every month, and I'll have Tim get you the information or you can reach out to me and I'll get you invited. 101s are great. I believe we had a one-on-one. They're discovery calls, 30 minutes. Hey, you do this, I do this, and you learn, and they're good. But podcasts are one-on-one calls on steroids. They're going to turn you into Arnold Schwarzenegger, big time. Because people go, Tell me more. I would have said, Well, you're coming in. The thought is, Tim, you're coming on my podcast as a guest. No, I'm promoting you. That's why you're coming on. But also we're going to have a great conversation. I always start off my podcast, and I even tweaked this a little bit, where I used to read my monolog before I launched my podcast. I've actually recorded that and let the recording do that. What I do is I jump right into asking a few questions. Here's some questions that If you're a podcast host, are valuable, you're going to grow fast with it. What's your superpower? What's three words to describe you? I just had a podcast say, Two incredible guys. Shout out to Jeff and Mike. We're going to connect and do some things together, which is part of why I do this. I asked them that question, and they were so taken back positively like, You really care about who we are as people. That's what that insinuates, if that's the right word, or I want to know them more than just their business coaches, their marketing experts, their this, that. I want to know them as people so I can relate that on the show. Well, now you start off with that pre-show conversation Usually, it's a great conversation with me. It turns into, Hey, 10 minutes, we become friends. We want to work together most of the time. Now you're jumping on a show, and now you're talking to them. You're finding out their desires, Tim, their passions, their challenges, their struggles, their stories, et cetera. I know so much more about them than if I did a one-on-one with them. We get done, and the first thing I go, I'm authentic. If it's not a great show, most of mine are because I really know how to dive into the guests, and I teach that, too, if you're interested, is what a great show. I did with these guys today. I said, Mike and Jeff, man, I love that show. God, it's one of my favorites. Here's why. You talked about purpose, you talked about faith and how you promoted that, and we're so humble. Perfect. Exactly what I said. They're like, Oh, my God, Steve. They said it on the show at the end. This doesn't happen all the time. They said, Steve, this is one of the best shows we've been on. We're so humbled to have us as a guest. You guys need to listen to Steve. Well, that's because I built such a rapport within 10 minutes with them, and then another 20, 25 minutes of rapport, then this happens. Here's the game changer. Drum roll, if we had a sound like... I actually gave them some introduction. Here's a couple of people you need to meet, or I'll give a resource or tip. A lot of times they'll go, Man, and they did it with me, How can I help you? Well, I'm looking for funding guys here. I'm looking for this here. I got a sponsor for my podcast. Man, let me see how we could help you. Let me reach out to our network. Boom, boom, boom. It's so valuable that maybe I get a $2,000 a month sponsor from Maybe not, it doesn't matter. But I've opened that opportunity door wide open. It's like you kick it and it flew open. Because remember, I gave them opportunities. I give them a gift. Ultimately, it comes back. Now, audience, if you don't get that, they don't ask you how I can support you. You go, Hey, Tim, can I ask a favor of you? Again, what a great podcast. Hey, Tim, do you know anybody that is interested in sponsoring my podcast? Or I'm looking for this. Whatever that is, It is, and be very narrow with it. Don't go, I'm looking for people that want to make more money. I'm looking for people that want better marketing. Here's a great tip. If you're a business coach and you work with CPAs and lawyers, say, Hey, Tim, do you know any lawyers that really could use some help or lawyers that are struggling or lawyers that need to scale their business? In people's minds, now they can think, Lawyer, who do I know that's struggling? Instead of saying, Hey, I'm just looking for lawyers. Man, it's not bad, but let's niche that down because in our head, especially me with 10,000 connections, I could do really well when you niche it down, but when you make it general, it's hard to do that. I've been doing that. I'm at 850 shows, and I've got two billion projects I'm working on because of it.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah. Thank you for breaking that down because you've got the... Before we conversation, you've got the conversation of the actual interview, and then you have to wrap up after the recording is done. And you're very purposeful and targeted with that. After the show, When I was on your show, I now get email notifications about episodes that have come out. How do you track or do you all the people that you've interviewed, the people in your network, do you stay on top of that with a process or is it more or less?

Steve Ramona
I do, and I need to be better with the follow-up, but here's the caveat, audience. I get 3-5 referrals daily. I'm meeting people all week, 5, 10, 15, 20 people. When I do an introduction, that's it. I know some people, I've got some introductions from some people, and they love going, Hey, How to go meeting this guy? How to go meet? I don't do that. Maybe I should, and if somebody reached out and wants to connect me and tell me, it's better. It's great. But introductions to me are once they're done. They're done. In a sense of what happened, I hope they connect, and I'm really good at it, to be honest. I know it's usually pretty good. But when you do it, too, it's top of mind. I have people I've talked to months later go, Hey, Steve, thank you for that introduction with Tim. Oh, my God, it was so great. Or, Thank you for thinking about me. But to stay top of mind, a newsletter, email newsletter is so powerful. You just mentioned it.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah.

Steve Ramona
Does everybody respond? No, I just sent one this morning. You probably got... Nobody emailed me back. It's like the billboard on a freeway. It's, Oh, that's Steve with a podcast. Oh, that's Steve with the podcast. I don't even promote my other business with it.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Look, even if I delete the email, I'm still seeing Steve Ramona. I'm like, Oh, yeah. I'm like, Steve, he's got another podcast episode that's come out, right? It's interesting that you bring this up. So with intros after, do you get both people's buy-in before you make the intro, or do you just make the intro based on what you know of each person?

Steve Ramona
Oh, my God. Tim, you're incredible. I've been on 300 shows. I've never been asked that. It's such a great question. It's somewhat of a complex answer. It is. For some reason... Well, let me answer it this way. So when I meet people, I use the ASLAA principle. It's something I developed. It's A-S-L-A, Asla. Ask, shut up, listen, ask. The big question I get when I say that or people are thinking, it goes, Okay, I've shut up. Why is there listening there? People could put active listening. I just say, Let's look at a Zoom room you've been on, either for business, for networking, whatever, with a group of windows, and that one window is black. Now, somebody's talking, are they really there? They could be. Or maybe they're going to the bathroom, maybe they're going to answer the door, their dogs, something might be going on. I'm not judging. I've done it. I've had to go black to go to the bathroom or whatever may be. It was my video. But is that person truly hearing what that person's saying? Probably not. That's why I say, Shut up and then listen. Because I could shut up and be on this podcast and think about, Oh, my God, I got to pick up my wife at 3: 00. Okay, I got to... And then you go, So what do you think? I wasn't active listening. I'm thinking about what I got to do later. Here's the power of that. So let's role play or improv I like to I'll do that with you, Tim. Tim, so what do you do for a living? Ask. Here's my ask. What do you do for a living?

Tim Fitzpatrick
I'm a marketing consultant. Let's just keep it simple.

Steve Ramona
So I've shut up, I've listened. It was a short answer. There comes another ask. Wow, that's cool. How long have you been doing that?

Tim Fitzpatrick
Oh, I don't know. Thirteen, 14 years, something like that.

Steve Ramona
Now, if I wasn't listening, I'll go, Oh, that's great. You've only been doing two For two years, you need to... No. Because I've had that happen. To be honest, it's crazy to me, but they didn't hear it. That's a long time. A lot of entrepreneurs don't last that long. You must be good at what you do, are you?

Tim Fitzpatrick
Of course I am.

Steve Ramona
Then that's fine. It leads to the question, then I can ask, What's your challenges right now with your business? What are you looking for in your business? How can I support your business? Here's a phrase I have on my... What can I do for you today? Because I've learned a little bit. You might say 14 years, but two years was in the army, and then I went back into it, and now I'm trying to pick it back up.

Tim Fitzpatrick
I didn't give you much to work with.

Steve Ramona
No, no, no, no. But see, that's a good one because that's where people freak out. You just keep asking questions, you dive deeper. Because once I say what your challenges are, it always opens the door. I need to meet more people. Well, Tim, I have a few people I can introduce you to because I listened.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah. What I'm hearing is you have enough information about the people that you're introing together that you don't actually get, Hey, would this be a good connection for you? And then make the intro. You make the intro based on what you know about the person.

Steve Ramona
I don't know how I do it. Yeah. Maybe that's why I do the introduction, let it because I'm so comfortable. And when I do it, people can reach out and they have, Hey, this didn't work out. Hey, thank you for letting me know, and all that. Because I'm intentional. And that's the important thing with the asset being intentional. So if you said you're in marketing, and I've talked to a fractional marketing company. Yeah. Well, would you be interested in meeting another fractional marketing company? Would you be interested in partnering with a CFO fractional or a COO fractional? I might do that, but I will tell them, like I just did with Mike and Jeff, real-time. They're really big in coaching and happiness. They wrote a book about God and happiness. It's a wonderful book. But right away, when they said happiness and coaching, Sandy Cusano, who's the joyful optimist, right away, I thought of him. Christian Johnson, who's a pastor, has a podcast. They could be a guest there. I'll say that, Hey, I'm going to introduce In a sense, I'm doing that, but I tell them, Hey, would you like to be guests on more podcast? They go, Yeah. Well, Christian, Oh, yeah, that would be great. And Sandy, who's the Joyful Optimist, Oh, yeah, that would be great. I'd love to meet her. I guess I do subconsciously do that. Say, I'm going to introduce you these people. But that's how I do it. I'll just say that.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah.

Steve Ramona
Which I never thought about before. You typically for you.

Tim Fitzpatrick
I don't think there's a There's not a right or wrong answer to that question. It's just different people do it different ways. So I'm always curious. I think it's what's challenging, too, is the more people you meet and the larger your network becomes, how do you keep track of people you know much more intimately than others, but you still want to help them all? And if you don't have good systems and the ability to search, to find those connections, then you're missing out on opportunities.

Steve Ramona
Here's some tips for that. I do use systems. The real simple system is you get on a call with somebody, you can't figure out how you connect. Just go to your calendar and type in their name. That's one way. Or go if it's LinkedIn or always ask. I'll always ask, How do we connect? So I give them credit. The other thing is I use... Notion is free. If anybody's interested, I have a free system that I built through another podcast. I actually jumped on a podcast and we built a follow-up system. I also use Mr. Task that a task becomes a referral and I could put all the names. Because I love doing that. It's like, I meet you again. I go, Tim, sometimes I'll go, Hey, how did Tony and Debbie referral go? Or, Did I refer you to Debbie? Let me check. Oh, no, I did refer you to Debbie. That's always cool to have that upfront knowledge when you're talking to people.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, interesting.

Steve Ramona
But you could put tickers on there. I know both of them have dates, so you could put a follow-up date. Tim Fitzpatrick, October 20th. I'll reach out November 28th, and it will pop up a notification. Hey, it's time to reach out to Tim. Those are two systems, or whatever you use is fine.

Tim Fitzpatrick
What are some of the unexpected opportunities and relationships that have come from your show that are top of mind for you?

Steve Ramona
Oh, shoot. They're Just to pick one is, well, starting my business, reaching out and somebody asking me, Hey, I've got a... Now, my business partner, he has a city. His partner has a city we're building in McDermott with a bunch of lithium mites. It's going to be big. He reached out and goes, Hey, anybody in your network you think could help? I started reaching out to people and we started getting all these connections. Now we have a full-flown business that's building two cities now. We're building student housing We're looking at renewable energy in Texas and Kansas and Missouri, all because one guy, Max, reached out and said, Hey, I need some help with this. I went through my network that's been building because of the podcast. All of a sudden, we've launched a business. It's going to be an extremely successful business, but we're also making a social impact as well.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Most people would never think something like that would come from a podcast.

Steve Ramona
It's amazing. Anybody can do it. I'm nothing special, I say. I'm special because I take action.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah. That goes back to impatience with action and patience with results.

Steve Ramona
I love what you said. It's exactly that because I think right now, the average, after 10 episodes, people quit. That's a month, a month and a half. I've been doing it three years. I'm at 850 shows. I was doing five shows a day. Don't expect people to do that, but you can see what the results are. And I've met people, a film producer that wants to work with me. He's worked with Steven Spielberg. We may work together. He was a great guest on my podcast. I've got a relationship with him.

Running a Podcast Smoothly

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah. That leads into my next question, Steve, about a lot of people, I think, may have an interest in hosting a podcast, but the fear of how much work it is to actually do, it prevents them from actually doing it. What tips do you have for running a podcast smoothly, from guest outreach to building those lasting relationships?

Steve Ramona
Easy answer, me.

Tim Fitzpatrick
That's it.

Steve Ramona
I say me, and I'll explain that audience, is I found over the years four things that people don't do a podcast. It bothers not the right word. It upsets me because you could see the power of podcast. The cost of entry is very minimal. Four things I've learned: cost, how do I get guests? How do I do it? And time. You're shaking your head. So every podcast host goes. So with the guests, I've got 850 guests. I can offer you 20, 30 guests in a day. I could get you 20 referrals. So that's taken care of. The money, you literally can jump on a Riverside Zoom, StreamYard, wherever you go, tell, Hey, Steve Ramona, can you come on my podcast? And record them. It costs you the cost of the program. Or if you want to jump on Zoom, you get free 45 minutes, start a Zoom account and just do 20 minutes and start interviewing people. Absolutely free. Youtube is absolutely free. If you can go on the podcast platform, it's great. But if you just go on YouTube, you're going to be successful because it's the number one podcast platform in the world now. A lot of people don't realize that. How to do it? I can show you how to do your podcast in 20 minutes. Literally record, get done, and takes about 15, 20 minutes. A lot of the time is waiting for the video to render, for the programs to do it stuff to give you all the information. So guest, time, money, and how to do it. I do a free podcast workshop every month. I'll jump on a free 30-minute call with you to help you with that. I do those once a month with people. They've reached out and said, How can I help you? I jump on it, show them the steps. I have a playbook I built. So if you want the playbook, all free, no cost. That's what I believe podcasts are. It's just they're so wonderful. You talk about production and quality and all that. Hey, if you want to do that and you've got the money to spend, do it. But remember, I've done 850 shows. I did them all myself.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah. So thank you for sharing that because, well, I have not done 850 shows, but I don't know. I'm on somewhere in the 300s. That's fantastic. I have not done any of the editing, but this does not have to be expensive. And especially with the AI tools that are out there now, we're recording on StreamYard. I really like StreamYard. If you really wanted to, you could in your entire recording, put your intro in, do the recording, do your outro, download the video, and you're freaking done if you don't do any editing. There's nothing else to do. So do not overcomplicate this. If you have questions, reach out Steve or reach out to me because you don't have to pay thousands of dollars a month for somebody to do postproduction on your podcast episode. You just don't have to do it. And once you get into it, there's not a lot of moving pieces, like you said. And the guest thing is like with marketing, people are always like, What content am I going to create? What topics am I going to talk about or write about. Once they get into it, they realize that there is no shortage of topics to talk about. And it's the same thing with guests. You don't need to overengineer. Frankly, I do a lot of solo episodes for For me, you don't have that benefit of connecting with people. But for my business, I also want to talk specifically about marketing as well as just business and growth and all that. If you're flexible like that, you never have to worry because you can always do a solo episode.

Steve Ramona
It's funny you mentioned that. I just did my first today. I've been so focused on interviews. I just did a nine minute. I've broken down in the short. It's my first 10 talking about stoicism and serving. I love what you're saying. It's really cool. I did all the shorts. I'm like, Oh, this is pretty cool. I got a bunch of stuff to work with. Here's the other power of this, audience. I'll just Excuse me because I know me. When I started October, 2010, I've never keynote-speaked. Nobody's asked me to be on TV, radio, written an article. I have five articles out there. I'm writing another one in major magazines. It's out there forever. I've been on TV, I've been on ABC radio. That wouldn't have happened without the podcast. So your personal brand increases as you interview people because they see you over and over and over again, and they go, There's got to be something to this guy. We got to learn more. When it comes to finding a title and a theme, what's your passion? If your passion is fly fishing, jump on and talk about fly fishing, because me and you can have a fly fishing podcast be completely different. Ask the exact same questions. Me and you, you look different than me. We talk different. Energy level is different. There's always going to be nuances in everybody's podcast because I hear that all the time. There's either too many of them, which there aren't. There's a lot less now than there were two years ago. Or two, what I do that's different. You do you. That's it.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Yeah, that's it. Be you. There's a lot less pressure when you're not starting a podcast going, I need to get in the top 1% of all podcasts. It's fun. I continue to do this because I enjoy doing it. I enjoy connecting with people like you. And the podcast enables me to speak with people that would be really difficult for me to speak with otherwise. And it's like you said, when I bring people on, I'm doing something to help serve them, and we just have a conversation. It's just that's cool.

Steve Ramona
Well, Tim, you're a perfect example of what you're talking about. Here's why. You're in marketing. There's millions of marketing people out there, entrepreneurs, large agents. I mean, a ton of them, we talked about we first met. Well, guess what? They get to talk to you, the marketing guy, and get to know you and your passions and desires as well. You're right. That guy does $100 million a year. He's not going to meet me one-on-one. He's not going to meet you one-on-one. But he's going to share his message on our podcast. We have the advantage in doing that.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Well, ironically, we met through another podcast. Rick Meekins introduced both of us. I don't know if was he on your podcast or vice versa or both?

Steve Ramona
Both. We swapped.

Conclusion

Tim Fitzpatrick
So both. I was on Rick's podcast, he was on mine, and then he made an intro to us. And here we are. And we've done the same thing. And these kinds of things just keep happening. And so it really does build upon itself. It's just you got to take each little step. So as we wrap things up, Steve, any last minute thoughts you want to share, words of wisdom, whatever you want to call it, anything else you want to say?

Steve Ramona
Yeah, I just learned something very powerful from Tim Tebo, college football player, played the NFL, Christian, but his faith is not the part of it, but he came up with a phrase that I've been sharing all week and I want to share with the audience. If you're an entrepreneur, business, ROI is important. What's my return on investment? Because guess what? We got to make money somehow, some way, and we can't pay our bills. He calls it return on impact. When you're out there working with people, don't worry about the ROI right now with person. Worry about the ROI impact. What impact I make to that person I'm in front of, working with, talking to, meeting? That ROI impact will make a difference on an ROI investment because you're going to build a relationship, whether it's with them or through them. They're going to invite you. They're networking with you. That's why I get 3-5 referrals daily. It's amazing this stuff. Hey, you got to meet Steve. Oh, my God, you got to meet Steve. I'm booked up my calendar. I'm trying to fit everybody in. Unfortunately, people have to wait, which It's just nature of being. You only have so much time during the day. I can't force it. But that return on impact is what I try to do every day. If you do that, and personally, too, impact the person in church at the grocery store. Here's another tip, real quick. I know we got to close. Here's a tip. Say everybody's name when you run into them that you don't know. For example, you go to the grocery store, you're checking on, Hey, Debbie, how are you doing today? Oh, I'm great. Hey, Debbie, thanks for packing my bags. Those two little 30-second clips may have changed her life. She may have the worst day in the world. You're at a restaurant, look for or ask. They don't have a name to it, What's your name? People want to be seen, and that little gesture makes a huge difference when you're talking to people. A massive difference.

Tim Fitzpatrick
I love that because if you think about, you can't have consistent repeatable return on investment without making an impact. And there's that... It's a mindset shift of, how do I get return on investment? No, how do you make an impact? Because if you make an impact, you will get a return on investment. So I love that. Thank you for sharing that. Where can people connect? I know we've got the podcast.

Steve Ramona
Yeah, Doing Business with a Servant's Heart. You can search that. That's the YouTube channel. You can subscribe there. Together We Serve on e360TV.com. It's like Netflix, but it's a whole bunch of TV shows on there. Together We Serve is the name of the show there. You'll see my mug on that little template there. It looks like Netflix. Then LinkedIn is where I go a lot. Steve Ramona, R-A-M-O-N-A. Or email me if you want to be part of my business. I do a free business workshop or podcast workshop. Just email me at stever1961@gmail.com.

Tim Fitzpatrick
Cool. Awesome, Steve. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much, man. It was great connecting with you again. Those of you that are watching, listening, appreciate you. You want to connect with us, do it over at rialtomarketing.com. The other resource we've got for you is at marketingenginescorecard.com. If you want to know which of the nine areas we focus on to build a marketing engine are slowing you down, where you're doing well, where... Go over there, less than two minutes, you'll get a free report and tons of value there. So Steve, thank you again. Audience, thank you. Thank you. Until next time. Take care.